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Thursday, November 17, 2016

Sometimes I
feel like I am living in a very wrong world. The world where views are biased,
people have no morals to fall back and where people take things for granted.
They mock or doubt you, if you wear your emotions on your sleeves. And then,
even if you happen to tell your true inner feelings, people ridicule you for
being over-sensitive. I really don’t know when caring or showing concern to
fellow humans became being over sensitive. But this is a modern world we are
talking about, someone told me and you should also act modern. I am like if these
acts mean modernisation, then probably I am well off, without it.

Well this
recipe has nothing to do with being over-sensitive, but yes it’s a very quick
way of making idlis, when you are running short of time and patience.

We were craving for some idlis but I had no
time for doing the whole procedure of soaking, grinding and then fermenting. There are
plenty of recipes for instant idlis out here in net.But all of them use ENO, I didn’t have at the
time of making these idlis, so used baking soda and it still came out fine.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Langkawi is
cluster of 99- 104 islands on Malaysia’s west coast. This is a great
destination for beach lovers and the ones who wants to relax in nature’s lap.
The very essence of Langkawi is its blue sea-water and paddy fields with some
hilly region.

Our 4 days
visit was a much relief from busy Kuala Lumpur life.

Although
there are many things to see and do as per activity wise, for active people
there is snorkelling, sea-sports etc. but we were more into spending time on
beaches. The island is blessed to have three conservation areas Machincang
Cambrian Geoforests park, Kilim Karst Geoforest park and Dayang Bunting Marble
Geoforest park (which is island of Pregnant Maiden lake).One can take ferry
transport from Penang, Kuala Kedah or by domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur.The
touristy population is confided into southern part and the north-east is more
secluded with little tourist. We based our selves in Kuah Town.

The views
from our apartment balcony were breath-taking- each morning and every evening
there was a different view to greet us.

Most popular
beach is Chenang beach or Pantai Cenang.This white-sand beach is the most
frequently visited place.

The main road which lead to the beach is lined by
street-side hawkers selling beach activities things and also clothes and accessories.
Do visit them when you are in this area and buy couple of things from them.

Although, I would say avoid the shopping malls, but if you are into chocolates
and alcohol then you can try out duty-free shopping malls as well.

Langkawi
cable car takes visitors up to the peak of Gunung Mat Chingchang. The entry is
through Oriental village that includes various fast-food joints, fish spa and a
3-dimensional art museum known as Art in Paradise. We went for a quick fish spa
session which was tickling and entertaining as well.

It’s better
to have your own vehicle to roam around in the island. But we hired local
taxi-drivers on two days and it was well worth it.Day 1 Hakkim- drove us around
in the island, very cultured and experienced driver.

He took us
to Eagle square

and also to
Tanjug Rhu beach

and Black sand beach

and dropped us
at Cable car site in the afternoon.

We were mesmerized
by the top view, the journey time from bottom of hill to the top is roughly 15
mints.

The cable car takes to the top station and from there, is an inclined lift
which takes people to the sky bridge.

Although, there is another passage
through steps which took us to the sky bridge. We were tired climbing up and
down the steps, but we finally made it to the sky bridge. We started walking on
the open sky bridge, once we reached the other end, weather started to deteriorate
and wind started howling at us, and soon we were trapped in a heavy thunderstorm.

While we waited holding our breath, the loud rumblings continued and then the
outcome, heavy and lashing rain, and we were trapped in a sort of a trench. A
care-taker luckily was there with us, guiding us through the whole situations.
We waited there for about 15 -20 mints till the ferocity of the rain subsided.
While still it was raining, we made our way back to the origin of Sky Bridge.
And what an experience it was. We were planning a relaxed action-free holiday,
lo behold we were facing a thrilling adventure of sort. So, when life gets tough
have 'snickers', yes we snicked snacked on snickers while waiting for the
thunderstorm to subside, entrapped with fellow tourists under a sort of trench.

When Hakim
came to pick us up, he seemed worried about us, and asked if we are fine or
not. He dropped us back to our hotel. And this is how our day one was spent with an unplanned adventure.

Day two and
three, we went to Pantai Cenang and spent entire days there, relaxing on beach.
I was hooked on to reading book for a change, and yes I did finish ‘The Girl on
the Train’ during this holiday, and what a good read this turned out to be.

We got
nicely tanned even though we were siting under these large umbrellas.

We are
blessed with more skin pigment melatonin and so you would know how things are
for us.

Last day we were not sure what to do, so, we
picked up a local driver Abu and he showed us rest of the interesting places in
Langkawi.

He seemed very keen in sharing local stories or legends about Langkawi.
The legend of pregnant maiden lake is based on a lady. The whole day he kept
telling us very interesting facts about Langkawi and he told us, he preferred life
over here rather than in Kuala Lumpur, and I couldn’t agree more.

The splendid
waterfall of Telaga Tujuh or seven wells waterfall kept us feeling relaxed and mesmerized.

Abu also happened to tell us stories about fairies who visit this place
frequently (hmmm never meant to feel haunted, but he told us they are good spirits
who take care of the waterfall area).We saw many tourists diving into the fresh
waterfall water. Although, we didn’t make it up to the top of waterfall, but
enthusiasts do that. We spent more time sitting there, soaking up the positive energy.
Another pit-stop was Temuran waterfall , we had a quick visit there.

We called
the day at Pantai Kok Beach and this is how our visit ended in Langkawi. We were returning back to the real life now- life at Kuala Lumpur.

‘’ It is
good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in
the end.’’

---------------Ursula K Lee Guin.

See you all next week with a new blogpost ...till then take care and enjoy life....